Hello everyone, below you will find a master list of free software available for Windows. Check back once in a while to see if an application you want to get has been tested (see testing notes for more info below).

For Mac Users...
A Mac OS X software list is now available at the following link, courtesy of Nicholas M (a.k.a. tHE j0KER).

HELP! There's so many to choose from, which is best for me?
There are countless variations of applications for every task, which can be overwhelming in finding the right version for you. In this light, the best option is to post a question on a type of application you&#8217;re looking for and people can respond with their impressions on which worked for them and which didn't. This can help to prune the list by, for example, removing items that have become outdated.

Guidelines For Making It To The List

Calvin and I take no responsibility for any damage caused by installing any applications listed here, so proceed at your own risk. I will try to test out every application on my virtual machines for XP (32-bit) and Vista (32-bit), but not every application will be tested, and any applications that are tested will not be fully tested. Tested applications will be marked as [TESTED] next to the link.

Everything is in this post; you don't need to search the entire thread. Links to where you can download the software are provided for every item.

It is recommended that you ask here for software recommendations.

This list contains software with no trials that are at least compatible with Windows XP (32-bit) and Vista (32-bit).

I will try to maintain which software has been newly added to the list, and will unmark software that has been on the list for more than a month.

If a link is broken, please let me know and if you can, let me know if the link has changed to something else. If there is no working link available, it will be removed.

The link for an application must point to a page with an English translation.

The software must be free, legal, and not promotional.

Please provide a safe link to the main page for the software.

The provided link should point to an information page about the application. Please do not supply a link that automatically downloads the application, as people would first want to read up on what the application does before deciding to download it.

Only items that have actual releases (alpha or beta or official) will be posted. Please do not send a link that has "upcoming" software.

If a posted link leads to a page that has pop-ups, it will be disallowed.

A Note on What [TESTED] Means
When an application gets [TESTED], it means that I ran my anti-virus program on it, installed it, played with the application for a little bit, then uninstalled it. I also check if the application has an uninstaller that works without leaving any files in the Program Files directory. I simply do not have time to test out every feature of every application, or even all the applications listed below. If there is a high demand for an application to be tested, then I'll definitely perform one on it. There will be entries that have the [TESTED:{tester(s)}] indicating that an application has been tested by someone other than me. I will list Alpha and Beta titles in this list, and they will be marked in the list.

A Note on Windows 7 Compatibility
With Windows 7 rapidly approaching RTM, I'm betting several people will begin to ask on whether the applications listed here work well with it. My thinking is that if an application works fine in Windows Vista (in either 32-bit or 64-bit), then it will work fine in Windows 7. What I'd like to do is update the list with any application that does NOT work properly in Windows 7. If you try out an application in Windows 7 and it doesn't work as expected, let me know so I can mark it. Please include which version of the application you are trying, and which edition of Windows 7 you are using (32-bit or 64-bit). Thanks!

A Note on What [EDITORS PICK] Means
The criterion that I base these picks is on the quality of the application in terms of ease-of-use, presentation, and setup experience.

Wish list / Requested Software
If you have a need for a kind of application that the list doesn't provide a solution for, post what you are looking for and I'll update this section here.

Give Away of the Day
Every day, the following site has an application that is free for the taking. The only catch is that you can only install it on the day that it is free. The link below shows what the current day's offering is:

Email Clients:Windows Live Mail [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] A pretty good email client; that has its roots from Outlook Express ThunderBird [TESTED:fonduekid] [EDITORS PICK]Postbox An email client that categorizes all your mail items (images, messages, videos, and more). Currently in beta for Windows. Zimbra Desktop Email client capable of working with Yahoo email, among other popular free email services.

Media
Music Players:Songbird [TESTED:Jayayess1190] [EDITORS PICK] A customizable media player that has a great set of additional features Winamp [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Foobar2000 [TESTED:KarenA]Media Monkey [TESTED:KarenA]KM Player [TESTED:McGrady] aimp [TESTED:McGrady] (Added January 2, 2009; Click on language link on right side of page for English)Kantaris Open source media player that mimics Windows Media Player.Spotify An application that allows you to stream music to your machine. Currently it is only available in the UK, but United States users will be given access in Fall 2009 (I hope).

Media Managers:Share Pod Manages your media files between your computer and iPod easily.Yamipod Another iPod management utility that works in Mac OSX, Linux, as well as Windows.Orb Media Streamer Allows streaming all your media anywhere that has a browser. All that's required is your computer to be "on" all the time.Media Portal Open source alternative to Windows Media Center, that looks very similar. Has vast array of plug-ins.GB-PVR Provides more plug-ins than Media Portal, but is slightly buggy and requires a bit more configuration out of the box.Poddox Manage your iPod without iTunes!EMDB Keep track of your DVD collection with this app, that includes the ability to import from IMDB.

Video Players:VLC Media Player [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]GOM Media Player [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] Plays many formats, including its own GOM format (see the encoders section for the download of the GOM encoder) Media Player Classic [TESTED:KarenA] [EDITORS PICK]SMPlayer [TESTED:Calvin]Zoomplayer [TESTED:Calvin]SecondRun A cool plugin that lets you watch a lot of online content from within Media Center.

Application Launchers and Docks:Colibri [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Launchy [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]ObjectDock [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Executor [TESTED:Calvin]Google Desktop [TESTED]Startup Manager [TESTED:Hiker] Make apps start on logon and can choose the order that startup applications run in. RocketDock [TESTED]RKLauncher [TESTED:MidnightSun] Similar to Rocket Dock. Uses less resources but at the cost of extensive customizability of Rocket Dock. Circle Dock [TESTED:MidnightSun] [ALPHA] An interesting twist on the dock idea - instead of a permanent dock at the bottom/top of your screen, Circle Dock appears around your cursor when needed. Coolbarz Provides desktop toolbars for quick and easy access to your most commonly used programs.

Theming/Widgets:CursorFX [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Yahoo! Widget Engine [TESTED:dbam987] [EDITORS PICK] Yahoo has a very good library of widgets that are quite well done. Kind of a resource hog, but very stable with the right widgets installed. Works in XP and Vista.VistaGlazz [TESTED:Calvin]Flyakite OS XVista OS X Transforms Vista to look like Mac OSX. (Warning: One user is reporting problems when trying to remove it. See this post.)Caledos Wallpaper ChangerAveDesk [TESTED:Calvin]Logon Studio [TESTED:Calvin]Desktoptopia [TESTED:Joyscant1980] Automatically change your wallpaper without you having to hunt for new walls. (NOTE: Windows version is beta)Wallpaper Slideshow Allows setting any picture as your desktop wallpaper, and can even resize the image to fit your entire desktop!BumpTop [TESTED:dbam987] Makes your desktop behave like a real-life desktop. It's very well done, and can be just the thing to revamp your desktop experience.

File Compression/Copying:7-Zip [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]WinRAR [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] Very good compression utility, lots of options even with the free version (Note: Even though it has a 40 day trial, it retains a good set of functionality after it has expired) TeraCopy [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]ALZip [TESTED:fonduekid]IZArcFastCopy [TESTED:MidnightSun] Fast file copying program LoadScout Ever wanted to just grab a subset of files in an archive located in a remote location? Now you can with this!

Disk/Image Ripping/Burning:Nero 9 Free Edition [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] This free edition allows data burning and disc copying features for CDs and DVDs.DAEMON Tools [TESTED:McGrady]DVD IdentifierInfraRecorderDVDFab HD Decrypter [TESTED]DVD Shrink [TESTED:THAANSA3]ImgBurn [TESTED:Hiker]CDBurnerXP [TESTED:KarenA]ISO Recorder [TESTED:Schmi Daniel the Man] Notes: Compatible with XP (32/64-bit), Vista (32/64-bit), and Windows 7 (32/64-bit)BurnCDCC [TESTED:J&SinKTO] works great for images and ISO files - nothing to install - simply unzip the file. Small size that has worked great for me on both Windows XP and Vista 64. Have used on numerous machines.O & O Disk Image Express [TESTED:Jayayess1190] The name says it all, creates images of disks. Deep Burner Free burner software that burns data and audio discs, as well as create and burn ISO images, and even make bootable discs.BurnAware Free disc burning software that includes tools to backup files, and the ability to burn blu-ray discs!DVD Decrypter The name says it all. Warning: Has not been updated since 2005... Magic ISO A lightweight and easy-to-use ISO mounter application.SubRip Allows ripping of DVD sub-titles with their timings as a text file.

Tweaking:Warning: The tools listed here to tweak your machine are not for the faint of heart. Messing with your system registry can cause problems with your machine. It is recommended to have a backup of your system handy. Please read carefully the information presented on each application's website and do a little research on the Internet to find out the problems others might have had with any of these tools.Microsoft Windows XP Power Toys [TESTED:Jayayess1190,dbam987] [EDITORS PICK] Microsoft has several tweaking applications here for Windows XP (Microsoft states that these are for XP only) WinBubble [TESTED:Calvin]RegToyRivaTuner [TESTED:ahl395]PC Decrapifier [TESTED:Hiker]WinSecret ProfessionalVista Visual MasterNet Tools Cool network tweaking features Keyboard King Tweaks the keypress rate of individual keys and the delay before keypresses repeat NVidia nTune [TESTED:ahl395] Utility for monitoring various system components and has the ability to overclock or underclock your system as you see fit. Glary Utilities [TESTED:Jayayess1190] Provides a suite of tools to clean, optimize, repair, and improve your system. Mz CPU Accelerator [TESTED:Jayayess1190] Utility that boosts the CPU priority of the foreground application. Also provides switches for managing multi-core systems. Clean Mem Tool that gives you back memory that has been used by programs. To elaborate, it does not force open programs to give back the memory it is using; the memory that closed programs have used are not totally given back to the computer to use, so Cleanmem can be used to do that.Advanced System Care Free Program that protects, repairs, cleans, and optimizes your PC.Driver Max Finds and downloads all drivers for your system, and can even back up installed drivers as well. (Not supported on Vista 64-bit!)Unlocker Got a file that you can't delete because Windows says "Access is denied"? This will take care of it, as well as other errors preventing you from using locked files.Lock Hunter An alternative utility for unlocking locked files.NetMeter Another bandwidth meter. Provides a nifty chart showing bandwidth usage. I might give this one a try in a bit.Xdn Tweaker Another utility that provides a lot of tweaks you can apply to Windows.

System Cleaners:Warning: Like the tweaking section above, system-cleaners might inadvertantly delete files you really need. Proceed with caution, and always backup critical documents before running any of these tools. Windows Installer CleanUp Utility A tool from Microsoft that cleans up partially installed applications, or resolving issues with un-installers that fail mid-way through. CCleaner [TESTED:KarenA] Windows/browser temporary file cleanerATF Cleaner Like CCleaner, very fast Windows/Browser temporary file cleaner.Comodo System Cleaner Another cleaning program that is available. Says it's compatible with XP and Vista. Revo Uninstaller [TESTED:fonduekid;Schmi Daniel the Man]RegSoft's Free Windows Registry Repair [TESTED:Jayayess1190] Another utility for cleaning your registry. Compatible with XP and Vista. Guru 3D Drive Sweeper A fast tool to remove driver leftovers from your system.Auslogics Registry Cleaner Another registry cleaner from Auslogics.Disk Max Like CCleaner, but does more! Compatible with XP/Vista/Windows Server 2003 & 2008/Windows 7.Xinorbis Monitors your hard-drive space usage, by figuring out how much space is used for system files, how much for applications, music, videos, etc. Useful for the hard-drive clean-freaks .

Resource Monitors:CPU-Z [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]GPU-Z [TESTED:fonduekid] [EDITORS PICK]Process Explorer [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] Awesome tool for viewing all running processes, and provides additional tools for managing applications SysInternals Suite [EDITORS PICK] Lots and lots of good resource monitors! CoreTemp [TESTED:MidnightSun] [EDITORS PICK] A motherboard indpendent lightweight CPU temp monitor. Shows temp of each core in multi-core systems! ATTO Kind of old, but still a good hard-disk benchmarking tool.HWMonitor [TESTED]Notebook Hardware Control [TESTED:ahl395] 32-bit runs fine, but 64-bit has some bugs.SamurizeRainmeter [TESTED:fonduekid]WinDirStat [TESTED:Jayayess1190]Everest [TESTED] Views all your system hardware, and includes temperature monitors as well. (Warning: Discontinued since March 2006)Hd TachPC Wizard [TESTED:Jayayess1190]HD Tune [TESTED]SpeedFan [TESTED]Bandwidth Monitor Lite 2 Monitors your bandwidth usage Bit Meter Monitors your bandwidth in simple elegant graphs. Also has a bandwidth estimator and alarm for when your approaching your limit. HWInfo Does monitoring of resources, as well as basic benchmarking, and says it can help with driver identification HWM-BlackBox Another monitoring application for resources; does performance tests as well RMClock [TESTED:MidnightSun] Monitors CPU, core temps, and core clock from the system tray. Can undervolt the CPU!Meminfo [TESTED:MidnightSun] Monitor your RAM from your system tray.Battery Bar [TESTED:nic] Simple, straight-forward, battery meter that monitors the status of your battery and displays your battery's status in the taskbar.inSSIDer [TESTED:dbam987;Schmi Daniel the Man;Ch28Kid] Cool tool that picks up all the available wireless networks and monitors signal strength. Good for finding wireless interference!Free Task Manager An alternative to the Windows Task Manager and Process Explorer. This one provides VERY useful additions: Disk usage by application, network port usage, and file lock lookup.Crystal Disk Info HDD/SSD utility software which supports S.M.A.R.T.Real Temp [TESTED:dbam987] Yet another temperature monitoring app, that monitors GPU temps as well. Version 3 is compatible with Core-i7 processors! And no installation required. Just run the EXE.Sha Plus Bandwidth Meter Bandwidth meter that tracks your usage per session, week, and month.Belarc Advisor Builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser.

Data Backup/Recovery:Recuva [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] Amazing file recovery tool! Can show previews of the "deleted" files on your machine, is quick on it's feet, and works very well on XP (32-bit).Macrium Reflect [EDITORS PICK] Allows backing up a disk even while Windows is running, has a backup scheduler, and is 32-bit/64-bit compatibleSyncback [TESTED:fonduekid]DriverMax [TESTED:Jayayess1190]Karen's Replicator [TESTED:Hiker]MozBackup [TESTED:Hiker]Prompt Drivers BackupSyncToy v2.0 [TESTED] Test DiskDriveImageXMLFreebyte Backup Can do incremental backups and you can schedule them as well.Clone Drive Light-weight ISO mounter. The website says it's supported up to XP only, so be wary of running on Vista.Clonezilla Can clone disks like the rest, and includes uni-casting/multi-casting support (whatever that is).PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) Clones disks like the others, but also supports cloning and restoring the BIOS as well.

Misc. Utilities:nLite&vLite [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Memtest86+ [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK]Fences [TESTED:dbam987] [EDITORS PICK] Organize your desktop icons easily with this tool! Note: Currently this is a beta community preview. Works in XP, Vista, and Windows 7.MD5 Checker 2.31 [TESTED:dbam987] [EDITORS PICK] Easy utility for verifying MD5 check-sums of files. No installation required!Quick SFV [Tested:dbam987;facadegeniality] [EDITORS PICK] Performs MD5 checksum verification. (Supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of XP/Vista)ConvertWinMergeWordWeb [TESTED:Calvin]WinGuggle [TESTED:Calvin]Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder [TESTED:KarenA]XVI32Unlocker [TESTED:Jayayess1190]DOSBoxDBAN [TESTED:Gregory] Doesn't run within Windows, as it's a bootable Live-CD that can be used to wipe the contents of hard-disks.Portable Apps [TESTED:Hiker]Dead Pixel Buddy [TESTED:KarenA]DisplayFusionVista Battery Saver [TESTED:Jayayess1190] [Review] The name says it all... saves up to 70% of your battery (according to the description on the site)Power Menu [TESTED:MidnightSun] uses ~1MB of RAM and adds variable transparency and process priority settings to the right click menu, and also adds "Always On Top" and a useful "Minimize to Tray" option to the active window & taskbar item context menusTrayIt! Minimize applications sitting in your taskbar to the system tray! Works well with app's you run in the background like media players. Great way of restoring some sanity to your taskbar. [Note: XP is supported, but Vista isn't]EJECT [TESTED:deeastman] Useful little utility for ejecting disc's from your optical drive. Put a shortcut to it on your taskbar and it's incredibly easy. Beats fishing for the eject button, which is often too small to quickly find and press on laptops! Works with XP and Vista.Eraser A permanent file deleterPismo File Mount Audit Package Allows mounting of ISO's, ZIP's, compact ISO's, compact file sets, and private folder files as virtual directories.Intel Processor Identification Utility Identifies the installed Intel processor's capabilitiesUSB Disk Ejector Nifty tool to eject USB devices safely, and more quickly than Windows XP/Vista does.Icon Restore Allows you to restore the layout of your desktop icons, in the event they get shoved by accident.Win Patrol Takes a snapshot of your system, and if anything critical happens, it will warn you of the change.X-Mouse Button Control A mouse button remapping utility.RBTray A small utility that provides minimizing applications to the system tray, instead of the taskbar, by right-clicking its minimize button.Dual Monitor Taskbar Add a toolbar to your 2nd monitor! Note: Only available in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 according to the developer's page.Classic Shell For those who long for the good old days of Windows, this is your tool. Adds features that were in previous versions of Windows that were removed in Win7 such as the classic start menu, and the toolbar for Explorer (and more).My Cool Desktop Arranges the icons on your desktop into shapes such as star formations, for example.

Productivity
Office:Outlook On The Desktop Ever wanted your Outlook calendar pinned on your desktop? Or you mail list? Or contact list? This is a must-have for Outlook 2007 users!Open Office [TESTED]Windows Live Essentials [TESTED] A suite of tools including the Outlook Connector which allows you to hook up your Hotmail/Live email addresses to Outlook. Require's Outlook 2003 or 2007.AbiWord [TESTED:Jayayess1190]ScribusLotus Symphony An alternative to Microsoft Office thats freeThe Sage [TESTED:J&SinKTO] A useful thesaurus/dictionary application. (Works in XP/Vista/64-bit)Repair My Word [TESTED:dbam987] Free tool to recover text from corrupted Word files. Note: For Word 2007 formatted documents, only the text can be recovered. I haven't tried this on earlier versions of Word files. Manic Time A nifty tool for time management. It can be used to log how you use your computer (i.e. how long you run any app) and shows a chart with your times.Go-oo A cross-platform alternative to MS Office, and variant to Open Office.7 Sticky Notes [TESTED] A super-charged sticky note application that has a lot of features, such as alarms and the ability to attach files to your notes. Even more, it provides keyboard shortcuts for quickly creating new notes on the fly.

FTP Clients:Core FTP LE [EDITORS PICK] Great utility for performing uploads to servers. Easy to use as well.File Zilla [TESTED:Gregory]WinSCP [TESTED:ahl395]Rightload File upload utility that provides FTP support, as well as ability to upload stuff to Flickr and Facebook.

Image/Video Editors & Viewers:Paint.NET [TESTED] [EDITORS PICK] This and GIMP are powerful image editors that can be had for the low cost of free!GIMP [TESTED:fonduekid] [EDITORS PICK] This and Paint.NET are powerful image editors that can be had for the low cost of free!Inkscape [TESTED:Calvin]Photoscape Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photosSumopaint [TESTED:Jayayess1190,dbam987] Image editor that works like Photoshop, but run's in your web browser so there's nothing to install!IrfanView [TESTED:Jayayess1190]Picasa [TESTED:KarenA]XnView [TESTED:Hiker]VirtualDub [TESTED:fonduekid]Easy Video Splitter [TESTED:Hiker] Easily split large AVI/DivX/MPEG/WMV and ASF files into smaller clipsEasy Video Joiner [TESTED:Hiker] Does the reverse of Easy Video SplitterFastStone Image viewer [TESTED:KarenA]FastStone Photo Resizer [TESTED:J&SinKTO] Works great for resizing photos (i.e. MB to KB) while still maintaining quality. Works great, simple and intuitive GUI. Works in Vista 64, have not tried on XP yet.Ginipic [TESTED:Jayayess1190] Quickly search for images using a variety of search engines including Flickr, Yahoo, Live, Google, and more! (Requires downloading the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1)RoundPic Online tool that can modify images by applying rounded corners (no install needed as it runs off the web browser!)Jalbum Free gallery software that creates personalized web albums of your digital picturesSplitcam Allows capture of video data into multiple applications rather than one at a time. Microsoft Image Composite EditorFrom Microsoft's Research division comes this panoramic image stitching application. Looks very nifty!Prish Image Resizer Image resizer that is compatible with XP/Vista/Windows 7. Its offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.Fotosketcher Automagically turns your photos into paintings, cartoons, and drawings.

Virtual Network Computing:Tight VNC [TESTED:ahl395] [EDITORS PICK] Free remote control software package derived from the popular VNC software Live Mesh [TESTED:booboo12] [EDITORS PICK] Easily sync files among several computers, and you can even remote in to any computer in your mesh! Note: This is still in Beta.Hamachi [TESTED:Calvin]TeamViewer [TESTED:Calvin] Remote desktop solution for remote assistance.UltraVNC [TESTED:ahl395]Synergy [TESTED] Control multiple computers using one keyboard/mouse. A bit difficult to use with it's interface, but still great at what it does.CrossLoop [TESTED:diggy, Walt Mossberg] Similar to Remote Desktop, allows one to ask for remote assistance to figure out a problem. Log Me In Desktop remoting where only the computer needing assistance needs this installed, and the helper can connect via a web browser.DropBox Awesome utility for syncing files across several computers.

Gaming Add-Ons:Xfire Platform for unifying launching many games, as well as provides game chat, and other features.StreamMyGame Captures the video of the game you are playing so you can watch it later. Does some nifty stuff by allowing you to overlay a webcam session on top of the video you capture.

Is there any way that you can make a distinction between the programs that have been tested and those that haven't?

Click to expand...

As I go through them I will mark them as [TESTED] next to the link. Please keep in mind that not all apps will be tested, and that not every feature of all tested apps will be explored. I will update the post to reflect this.